DUBLIN — A senior Catholic Church figure said Ireland’s government should establish a
fact-finding probe into the church’s mistreatment and burial of babies who died in nun-operated
homes for unmarried mothers.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin made his appeal yesterday after revelations that hundreds of
children who died in a former church residence for children born out of wedlock were buried in
unmarked graves at the site.

A researcher found records showing that 796 children, mostly infants, died at the home in Tuam,
County Galway, from its 1925 opening to its 1962 closing. Residents suspect that they were interred
in a nearby field.